Manhattan Is My Beat (Rune 1)

"You know, stuff stuff."

"Rune."

"Oh, it'd be a radical job. Very artistic. In SoHo. Discounts for clothes. Slinky dresses. Lingerie."

"You're hopeless, you know that."

"Well, to be totally honest, I already took the job and threw out the other application too." She stared at the two or three stars whose light was bright enough to penetrate the city haze. "I had to do it, Richard. I had to. I was worried that if I got a degree or anything I'd get to be, like, too literal."

"We couldn't have that, could we?"

Then the stars were blocked out completely, as Richard leaned over her, bringing his mouth down slowly on hers. She lifted her head to meet him. They kissed for a long while, Rune astonished that she could be aroused by someone wearing a button-down shirt and Brooks Brothers slacks.

Very slow, it was all very slow.

Though not like slow motion in a film. More like vignettes, frame by frame, the way you'd hit a VCR pause button over and over again to watch a favorite scene.

The way she'd watched Manhattan Is My Beat.

Freeze-frame: The cloth of his collar. His smooth neck. His paisley eyes. The white bandage on her hand.

Freeze-frame: His mouth.

"We going to be safe?" he whispered.

"Sure," Rune whispered. She reached into the pocket of her skirt and handed him the small, crinkly square of plastic.

"Actually," he said, "I meant because we're twenty feet in the air."

"Don't worry," Rune whispered. "I'll hold you real tight. I won't let you fall."

Freeze-frame: She wrapped her arms around him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

"I don't howl."

In the loft Sandra was putting explosive red polish on her toenails. She continued sourly. "That was the deal. Remember? I don't howl when I'm in bed with a guy and you clean up after yourself."

She nodded at the mess Rune had made when she was frantically packing. "I have somebody over, I'm quiet as a mouse. He howls, there's nothing I can do about it. But me, I ask you, am I quiet, or what?"

"You're quiet." Rune bent over and picked up clothes, swept up the broken glass.

"Do I howl?"

"You don't howl."

"So where were you last night?" Sandra asked.

"We went to a junkyard."

"Brother, that boy's got a way to go." Sandra glanced up from her artistic nails, examined Rune critically. "You look happy. Got lucky, huh?"

"Didn't your mother teach you not to pry?"

"No, my mother's the one who taught me how to pry. So, you get lucky?"

Rune ignored her and repacked her clothes, put the books back on the shelf.